Question Help! Friends dead Alienware X51 R3

[chrisjames61]

My friend brought me his dead machine. The following parts have tested good. GTX 970, SSD, mechanical hard drive and the DDR4. The following items I could not test. CPU as I don't have a LGA 1151 board, motherboard as I don't have another cpu to swap in, proprietary power brick also. My assumption is the board is more than likely the culprit. I think the power brick is fine because it powers on and the hard drive activity light sporadically works when I try to boot it up. No video signal whatsoever. 99.9% the cpu is good I would think. I am pretty sure the cpu is an I7-6700. My plan would be to get him a micro-atx board and build him a real pc. Anyone have any suggestions?

 

[NTMBK]

If it's the same as the x51 R2, the power brick connects to a power board internally with a normal ATX power connector. So you could disconnect the entire power board and hook up a separate power supply to test.

EDIT: I take it back, on the R3 the power supply is integrated into the motherboard.

 

[aigomorla]

I don't know much about that system, but i do know if you want to swap boards with those core components, the board you are looking for is a Z170.

 

[chrisjames61]

If it's the same as the x51 R2, the power brick connects to a power board internally with a normal ATX power connector. So you could disconnect the entire power board and hook up a separate power supply to test.

EDIT: I take it back, on the R3 the power supply is integrated into the motherboard.

Yes, I saw that when I took it a apart. But thanks anyway. I see there are LGA 1151 boards and LGA 1151 (300) series boards. I guess I would need a Z270 board all of which have been long discontinued.

 

[Furious_Styles]

Yes, I saw that when I took it a apart. But thanks anyway. I see there are LGA 1151 boards and LGA 1151 (300) series boards. I guess I would need a Z270 board all of which have been long discontinued.

The LGA 1151 is confusing, you want to make sure you have the 6th/7th (Z170/Z270)gen or the 8th/9th (Z370/390) gen, because they are not compatible.

 

[chrisjames61]

The LGA 1151 is confusing, you want to make sure you have the 6th/7th (Z170/Z270)gen or the 8th/9th (Z370/390) gen, because they are not compatible.

Adding to the confusion I don't know if the I7-6700 is supported out of the box with all Z170 and Z270 boards.

 

[aigomorla]

the 170/270 should both be out of the box.

 

[SamMaster]

From personal experience, having fixed Dell systems for almost 15 years, I have a tendency to point towards the motherboard. It is very rare to have a dead CPU, though I once had a six month period where CPUs were defective often.

In the worse case, and I have seen it happen a handful of times, one of the three components is causing damage to the other two, but that's a one in a million chance.

TLDR: look at the motherboard first, then PSU, the CPU last.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

My plan would be to get him a micro-atx board and build him a real pc. Anyone have any suggestions?

Stick to the plan. PSU, board, and case, will probably cost about what he paid in sales tax alone, on that Alienware.

 

[chrisjames61]

Stick to the plan. PSU, board, and case, will probably cost about what he paid in sales tax alone, on that Alienware.

Yeah, it was expensive. To me the whole premise is stupid. Mid sized pc with a huge, bulky, ugly power brick to boot. How is that any better than having say a mini itx or even micro atx pc with industry standard parts that can actually be fixed when it breaks? I am not a gamer but the power brick is rated at 330 watts and he had a GTX 970 in it. The I7 6700 I think is a 65 TDP cpu. Isn't 330 watts kind of a weak psu with that gpu?